He’s not, of course. No more than any trip to sunny San Diego can make him jumpy knowing the opposing quarterback he faces Sunday, Philip Rivers, will do something dumb to help make life easier for Manning and the Denver Broncos.

Forget Rivers, though. What will happen to Manning in that game?

This is no ill-will wish. No attempt at voodoo. No pin through the heart of a stuffed Bronco.

The Kansas City Chiefs, however, do not play against first-string quarterbacks. Who was the last top-flight QB they faced? John Hadl?

Look out, Peyton. The charmed run the 9-0 Chiefs are on could be a curse. You figure on Manning making it through the game at San Diego and in Denver’s lineup when Kansas City visits on Nov. 17.

Few quarterbacks are tougher, or as skilled, in the pocket. In addition, few have tougher resolve than the future Hall of Famer considering the rehabilitation he went through to play football again, and do so at a high level for the Broncos.

Yet the list of backups the Chiefs have faced is so extensive, and so numbing, you wonder what is going to unfold next for KC on this fast lane to first place.

The barrage of reserve quarterbacks the Chiefs have faced — rookies, rejects and retreads — is proof, again, that the position is the hardest to play in all of sports and desperate NFL teams must turn at times to anyone with a pulse who can pass.

Some show promise. Jeff Tuel engineered Buffalo to twice as much yardage as the Chiefs. Case Keenum proved that an NFL team should have at least drafted the Texas gunslinger. Ryan Fitzpatrick was under center for Tennessee and impressed you with his, uhh, Ivy League education.

These are just the circumstances the Chiefs were dealt. It was not as if they petitioned the NFL to face teams on the mend at the QB position.

Their schedule was composed based on concessions the league provides sub-.500 clubs for the sake of parity, but no other favors were pre-arranged.

Now, that schedule stiffens. Accordingly, it seems, the Chiefs have a week off to rest and prepare for a trip to Denver, and do so under a coach, Andy Reid, who was 13-1 coming off bye weeks during his time with the Philadelphia Eagles.

Anything fortuitous is worth factoring when it comes to the Chiefs. Yet it’s all just conjecture made fashionable by Kansas City being the last undefeated team left playing the most popular brand of America’s most popular sport.

“The funny thing is, a little bit I feel like, what are we even talking about?” KC quarterback Alex Smith said Monday. “There’s a system in place in the NFL to find out who’s the best. It’s the 16-game season and it’s the playoffs. To be speculating right now, nine games in, who’s the best and who’s not is just talk. They don’t give any trophies out after nine weeks.”

No, just a week off. Enough time to apologize for the unexpected start, if indeed the Chiefs were so inclined. But they’re not. Nor should they be.

Listen, to borrow Reid’s favorite modifier, the Chiefs have many issues to sort through, particularly on offense — from the workload of Jamaal Charles, to touches by wide receivers, to pass protection.

Wins, however, are wins. Quickly, this team has learned how.

In all likelihood, Manning will be healthy and itching to beat the upstart AFC West leaders when the Chiefs roll into Denver on Nov. 17 for a prime-time appearance. If he has an open man in the end zone, Manning will throw the ball to him, rather than award a Chiefs defender a 100-yard pick-six.

These are things are the Chiefs must be ready for when facing an honest-to-goodness standout quarterback.

There is no better way to get ready for that test than getting to 9-0 and having a bye week to prepare.

“Every guy in this locker room, in the back of their head this whole week, will be thinking about Denver,” Smith said. “It’s a big game ahead of us, but at the same time (we need a) little time. As much as you can, you use it to get away a bit, to come back fresh and ready to roll.”

The kind of roll the Chiefs have been on could even have Manning worried. Just a little.